“MANCHESTER UNITED BOSS Jose Mourinho nicks workman‘s tools in furious training ground spat!” screamed The Sun on Sunday on 27 August. According to the paper, workers laying new pitches at United’s Carrington training ground incurred Mourinho’s wrath after borrowing cones and corner flags to mark their site, provoking the manager to retaliate.
“The Portuguese hothead, 53, stormed off with a spade after barking: ‘If you take things of mine, I will take things of yours,’” the paper reported.
This Fawlty-esque scene, a rare moment of conflict during the unnaturally calm opening weeks of the current United regime, was a reminder of the Jose Mourinho we knew and loved. Paranoid, vindictive, cruel; the unfortunate labourers fulfilling the role normally occupied by referees, opposing managers or mutinous dressing room factions.
Until the aftermath of last Saturday’s Manchester derby defeat, Mourinho had cut a strangely serene figure at Old Trafford. Save for the alleged shovel stealing, the refusal to subsidise Bastian Schweinsteiger’s semi-retirement, and the mild baiting of Juan Mata during the Community Shield, there had been little of the real Mourinho on show.
This, of course, was because Manchester United hadn’t actually wanted the real Mourinho.
You can tell a lot by the way a club introduces their new manager. Manchester City revealed Pep Guardiola to the strains of What’s The Story Morning Glory, with an outdoor stage show in front of thousands of fans. This was City saying: meet the new guy, NOTHING like the old guy.
United’s initial welcome for Mourinho consisted of a couple of low key videos, including a four-minute vignette documenting the new manager’s first visit to the training ground. It featured some good-natured joshing with Ed Woodward and lots of pointing into the middle distance. But the whole point of the video was a stage-managed meeting with Sir Bobby Charlton, previously on record as not believing Mourinho to be United’s kinda guy, what with his history of crazy antics and brutalist football and all.
“I’m very happy to see you,” says Charlton, sounding sincere. Jose is dignified and respectful. The corporate video muzak swells up to leave the camera lingering on the two men for a full 90 seconds, lest we miss the symbolism of the meeting. It’s the moment of coronation, the official anointing of the new chief by the tribal elder. It says: Sir Bobby approves.
It also says: meet the new guy… look we’re not sure about this either… he’s going to be different here, okay?
And that atmosphere permeated the opening months of Mourinho’s reign. Where we thought a scorched earth policy would be visited upon Louis Van Gaal’s squad, instead there was understanding and diplomacy. Aside from Schweinsteiger, Adnan Januzaj and a handful of unwanted youngsters, the players were treated with kid gloves. A role was found for Marouane Fellaini, who most United fans expected to be first in the proverbial skip. Wayne Rooney — clearly the recipient of some sort of National Trust preservation order we haven’t heard about — remained untouchable.
Even Mata (Mourinho’s nightmare: small, slow, creative) was accommodated in the early weeks of the season.
Timid Bournemouth and Southampton sides were dispatched and a late winner against a valiant Hull City made it seemed plausible that this statesmanlike approach might work.
But then came 40 dazzling minutes of football from Pep Guardiola’s City. Watching his flaccid team being tied in knots by a Guardiola masterclass would have been familiar to Mourinho. He would have thought back to his first el Clásico, in November 2010, when his previously unbeaten Real Madrid team were eviscerated 5-0 by peak Pep-era Barcelona. He’ll remember saying how he felt “impotent” that night.
He’ll remember how he determined to make his Real team the anti-Barca in every way. They wanted possession? Real would counterattack. They wanted to pass? Real would disrupt and spoil. The Spanish players in both squads wanted to be friends? He would cultivate rivalry and enmity. They were the good guys? Fine, Real would be the bad guys.
He’ll remember how he poked the late Tito Vilanova in the eye while on the way to losing the 2011 Spanish Super Cup, but how that season ended with Real as champions, with a record points total, and an exhausted and exasperated Guardiola heading off to New York on sabbatical.
He’ll have seen how his Manchester United team, once they displayed some aggression and spite, eventually got close enough to City to at least make a game of it. He’ll have seen his team play a primitive brand of football, a Crazy Gang with Vuitton toiletry bags, and will feel no shame about how it troubled City.
Criticising the referee and throwing his players under the bus is just the start. The diplomacy will be ditched. Mourinho will believe he knows how to stop Guardiola, and that it’s not a job for Mr Nice Guy. This is the fable of the scorpion and the frog, and United may be about to feel Mourinho’s sting.
The real Mourinho is back, although there’s a builder without a shovel out there who’d suggest he’s never been away.
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